Training

Most players find training as boring as those of us playing football management games find training menus in these games. However, we all know that without training your team will be unfit and uncohesive on the pitch come match day. You should take the time to train your squad whenever the chance comes up. To do this, visit the Training section. Here, you can select the type of training regime that you would like them to embark upon. These can be any from those listed below:

Match Practise:This is focused on getting them in the mindset of mach day, and is good for honing tactics and formations

Cardio:This concentrates on fitness and stamina.

Stretching@This aims to reduce the likelihood of injury when your players get into the match.

If players are not training, then they will be Resting. Resting causes players to gain Condition.

Keep your players fit to help avoid injury and maximize their potential.

Training Speeds:

Below you can see a guide to which players train the fastest in each team.

Ages 18-21:These players train the fastest. If you invest in your youth academy it will also speed things up here.

Ages 22-26:Slightly slower training than above. You can improve things further by investing in the training ground.

Ages 27-28:Again, these are the next slowest trainers. As above, you need to improve the training ground to help here.

Ages 29-31:These are bad trainers - they can't get any better and will not learn new skills or improve their abilities.

Ages 32-34:Unfortunately, these players lose their skills. Players will have retired by the time they reach the end of this bracket, although in real life 34 is not necessarily the final years of a player's career.

Finally, remember that a player who has match practice will also train faster. If you have players who never feature in matches, they will have stunted progression.

Team Intensity:

You are able to set the Team Intensity of training. You can set special instructions for the First Team and the Substitutions and Reserves separately. You can choose from Rest, Normal, or Hard training regimes. Change this depending on how tired your team is and how they are performing.

Individual Training:

You can tailor individual training sessions to focus on a particular area for any player in your squad. This is especially useful if you feel one person could do with improving an asset, finishing, for example, but you don't want your whole team focusing on it.

To assign individual training tasks, go to the Training Screen. You can then pick the one player that you want to give the training regiment to. With them selected, toggle the type of training on the right-hand side. You can pick from Defenive, Attacking, and Physical and Mental. Click Save to confirm the training.

Remember, if you find this level of man-management too much, you can simlpy choose the Auto-Assign option. This puts the computer in charge of selecting training for all of your players. It is good for you to have an input on areas of strength and weakness for your team, as that obviously has a direct impact on tactics. However, it does take a lot of time and you may prefer to let the computer do all of that work.

Personal Trainer:

The Personal Trainer is one area where your Tokens come in handy. Click on a player that you want to improve and then select 'Personal Trainer'. You can then move the slider to instantly improve them to that level - providing you are willing to pay out the Token amount specified!

NOTE: Every so often you may notice that one of your players has lost a star of their ability. This is nearly always because you have progressed to a better league. The stars represent a player's quality when compared to everyone else in the league, so star ratings will change as you move up and down through the ranks.